Many chemcial and separation processes involve heat exchange among the process streams in order to improve the energy efficiency of that process. For many such processes, operation at high pressure is advantageous in that it improves thermal efficiencies. However, high pressure heat exchanger operation places severe restrictions on the heat transfer equipment.
High pressure service involves capability to sustain the fluid pressure and thereby involves relatively heavy structures associated with the heat transfer equipment. Apart from the heavy walls that are required for individual heat transfer fluid passages, high pressure requirements make manifolding requirements severe. Additionally, it is difficult for high pressure heat exchange units to attain high reliability in that each joint associated with the heat exchanger unit exposed to high pressure service is a possible source of leakage. Further, it is difficult to fabricate heat exchangers of large size due to size limitations on parts imposed by the fabrication equipment.
Accordingly it is an object of this invention to provide an improved heat exchanger for high pressure process applications.
It is another object of this invention to provide an improved heat exchanger for high pressure applications that is easly and economically fabricated.
It is another object of this invention to provide a heat exchanger for high pressure applications that is easily and economically fabricated into a large unit.
It is another object of this invention to provide a heat exchanger for high pressure applications wherein the number of joints required per given size is reduced.
It is another object of this invention to provide a heat exchanger for high pressure applications that can be effectively headered for multiple stream applications.